En 2005, après la chute du régime baassiste de Saddam Hussein, les autorités irakiennes, mises en place par la Coalition menée par les États-Unis, ont instauré en Irak un nouveau régime démocratique, parlementaire et fédéral, et adopté la première Constitution permanente du pays depuis la fin de la monarchie en 1958. Le système fédéral ne s’applique encore aujourd’hui qu’à une seule entité fédérée : la région du Kurdistan d’Irak, qui trouve dans ce régime une autonomie de jure succédant à l’indépendance de facto acquise quatorze ans plus tôt lors de la Deuxième guerre du Golfe. La démocratie pourra-t-elle être appliquée à un pays empreint de la culture arabo-musulmane et encore marqué par près de quatre décennies de dictature ? Le fédéralisme est-il la réponse aux divisions ethniques et religieuses profondément ancrées dans la société irakienne, en particulier entre les Arabes chiites, les Arabes sunnites et les Kurdes ? Saura-t-il constituer une solution capable de satisfaire les ambitions nationales du Kurdistan d’Irak et de résoudre les conflits qui opposent ce dernier au gouvernement central irakien ? En analysant le texte de la Constitution irakienne de 2005 et le projet de Constitution de la région du Kurdistan de 2009, en examinant les institutions fédérales de l’Irak et les institutions régionales kurdes, en étudiant la répartition des pouvoirs dans le système fédéral, et à la lumière de l’évolution de l’Irak au cours des années qui se sont déjà écoulées depuis la transition, ce travail a pour ambition de déterminer la viabilité et la pertinence du régime constitutionnel fédéral pour l’Irak et pour le Kurdistan. / In 2005, after the fall of the Ba’athist regime of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi authorities, installed by the American-led coalition, inaugurated in Iraq a new democratic, parliamentary and federal regime and adopted the first permanent Constitution for the country since the end of monarchy in 1958. Today, the federal system still only applies to a single federated entity: the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, which found in this new regime de jure autonomy following a de facto independence acquired fourteen years earlier in the wake of the Second Gulf War. Can democracy be applied to a country stamped by Arab Muslim culture and scarred by almost four decades of dictatorship? Is federalism the answer to ethnic and religious divisions that are profoundly anchored in Iraqi society, in particular those between Arab shi’ites, Arab sunnis ad Kurds? Will it be a satisfactory solution for the nationalist ambitions of Kurdistan and the conflicts that oppose that region to the Iraqi central government? By analysing the text of the 2005 Iraqi Constitution and of the 2009 draft Kurdish constitution, by examining the federal institutions of Iraq and the regional institutions of Kurdistan, and in light of the evolution of the new regime since it was established, this work attempts to evaluate the viability and the pertinence of the Iraqi constitutional regime for both Iraq and Kurdistan.

The aim of the current thesis was to investigate the relationship between Alevis and Sunnis through the lenses of Social Identity Theory, Social Dominance Theory, and Contact Hypothesis to understand whether they see the current situation stable and legitimate, and perceive discrimination. It was expected that Alevis and Sunnis will differ in ingroup identifications, social dominance orientations, quantity, and quality of intergroup contact, perception of legitimacy and stability, and perceived discrimination against their ingroup. Moreover, the relationship between the dimensions of religious group identification, social dominance orientation, social contact and legitimacy, stability, and perceived discrimination is expected to differ between groups. The sample was consisted of 157 Sunni and 172 Alevi participants living in Amasya, Turkey. Participants completed a questionnaire package including the measures of religious identification, social dominance orientation, social contact, legitimacy, stability, and perceived discrimination. Results revealed that there were significant differences between Alevis and Sunnis in public religious identity, alienated religious identity, opposition to equality, contact quality, perceived legitimacy of the group status, and perception of discrimination directed against ingroup and outgroup. Moreover, religious group identification and social dominance orientation significantly predicted the perception of legitimacy and stability in both Alevi and Sunni groups. Examination of the associations among the major variables revealed that the relationship between perceived discrimination and ingroup identification was slightly stronger for Alevi group compared to Sunni group. The power of group based dominance was stronger than opposition to equality in predicting the perception of discrimination, especially for the Sunni group. Finally, intergroup contact, especially the quality of contact, had a positive effect on intergroup relations. Considering that this thesis is the first attempt to empirically examine the fundamental social psychological processes underlying the Alevi issue in Turkey, findings were discussed on basis of sociological and political aspects as well as previous work in Western cultures.

This thesis addresses the relationship between sectarianism and state-making and nation-building in Iraq. It argues that sectarianism has been an enduring feature of the state-making trajectory in Iraq due to the failure of the modern nation-state to resolve inherent tensions between primordial sectarian identities and concepts of unified statehood and uniform citizenry. After a theoretical excursus that recasts the notion of primordial identity as a socially constructed reality, I set out to explain the persistence of primordial sectarian affiliations in Iraq since the establishment of the modern nation-state in 1921. Looking at the primordial past showed that Sunni-Shicite interactions before the modern nation-state cultivated repositories of divergent collective memories and shaped dynamics of inclusion and exclusion favorable to the Sunni Arabs following the creation of Iraq. Drawing on primary and secondary sources and field interviews, this study proceeds to trace the accentuation of primordial sectarian solidarities despite the adoption of homogenizing policies in a deeply divided society along ethno-sectarian lines. It found that the uneven sectarian composition of the ruling elites nurtured feelings of political exclusion among marginalized sectarian groups, the Shicites before 2003 and the Sunnis in the post-2003 period, which hardened sectarian identities. The injection of hegemonic communal discourses into the educational curriculum was found to have provoked masked forms of resistance that contributed to the sharpening of sectarian consciousness. Hegemonic communal narratives embedded in the curriculum not only undermined the homogenizing utility of education but also implicated education in the accentuation of primordial sectarian identities. The study also found that, by camouflaging anti-Shicite sectarianism, the anti-Persian streak in the nation-state’s Pan-Arab ideology undermined Iraq’s national integration project. It explains that the slide from a totalizing Pan-Arab ideology in the pre-2003 period toward the atomistic impulse of the federalist debate in the post-2003 period is symptomatic of the ghettoization of identity in Iraq. This investigation of the interaction between primordial sectarian attachments and the trajectory of the making of the Iraqi nation-state is ensconced in the project of expanding the range and scope of social scientific applications of the nation-building and primordialism lines of analysis.

The main aim of the master thesis titled "Nation-Building in Iraq after 2003" is to evaluate the success of nation-building processes in Iraq between 2003 and 2011. The analytical approach of the German political scientist Jochen Hippler serves as a theoretical and terminological starting point. The thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter deals with the general and conceptional problems and of the terms "nation" and "nation-building". This is followed by a brief overview of Iraqi history. The next part is devoted to Hippler's three central elements of successful nation-building applied to the Iraqi context (i.e. integrating ideology, national integration and state-building). The third chapter explores whether ethnosectarian identities are subordinate to Iraqi national identity. The forth chapter is focused on Kurdish- Iraq relations and its potential implications for territorial (and economic) cohesion of Iraq and the following chapter deals with capabilities of the state apparatus concerning governance, providing security and delivering basic services. In conclusion, the level of success is summarized in the three dimensions respectively as well as with regad to overall nation- building process in Iraq.

Examining any topic in the Middle East requires a general knowledge because of the region's complexity and dynamics. Important characteristics is the link of Islam and politics, because this relation shaped political establishment of states. The strategic location and rich natural resources of this part of the world were tempting also for the global superpowers whose engagement divided the Middle Eastern states, particularly during the Cold War. An analysis of the factors and events that led to the formation of alliances and rivalries in the Middle East is the goal of this work. Research will focus on alliances of Iran and its Shia allies on the one hand and Saudi Arabia with the rest of Sunni monarchies on the other. Unlike other alliances mentioned in the work, these two blocks have long term character. They are also specific because of sectarian differences, their stance towards the United States and Israel and shared responses to emerging threats. Historical development of Middle Eastern alliances begins with the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, continues with the both World wars, the Israeli-Arab conflict, the Islamic revolution in Iran and other milestones which were meaningful in shaping inter-state relations in the region. The modern period moves from invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq to...